The Art of Aphorism, The New Yorker, 15 July 2019

The New Yorker, an American magazine featuring political and cultural commentary, fiction, poetry and humour, carried an article on aphorisms and why these fragments of wisdom whether empirical or mystical, funny or profound have such an enduring form. The article featured Yale-NUS Associate Professor of Humanities (Literature) Andrew Hui’s new book A Theory of the Aphorism: From Confucius to Twitter, noting that unlike John Stuart Mill’s writing in 1837 which declared that “almost all books of aphorisms, which have ever acquired a reputation, have retained it”, Assoc Prof Hui’s new book “does something oddly and interestingly different”.